EU citizens
Almost all the comments left by individual EU citizens came from Italians, most of whom were in favour of stricter origin labelling.
One individual from Estonia said the current practice of listing the origin of honey such as ‘produced in EU’, ‘a mix of honeys from EU and outside the EU’ and ‘produced outside EU’ are “unacceptable and confusing for customers”.
An anonymous Italian agreed: “In my opinion [EU and non-EU labelling] is too generic and defeats the purpose of the Regulation.
“I understand it's difficult to find common ground between all parties involved, but in this particular case I feel it's fundamental that the citizens' interests prevail,” he or she added.
Massimo Biloni, an Italian citizen, said origin labelling was “of extreme value” and, in any case, it was “not obligatory to read it. It is not giving any problem for the consumers that might continue to act in the same way”.
An anonymous Italian contributor said: “The fact that trademarks are excluded makes the standard totally useless. Anyone can easily register his trademark and avoid the obligation to indicate the origin of raw materials. People want information, not business!”
According to Italian Alessandro Braggio, even though member states must abide by the same food safety standards, variations may still occur.
“Different countries (even different regions in the same country) have a different food standard since this is strictly related to the food culture or other environmental factors which potentially affect food quality.
"If some of the food comes from an extremely polluted area, [it] probably has a high possibility to be also polluted. So it is necessary to give to the consumer the possibility to make an educated choice.”
Another anonymous citizen railed against the ‘Italian-sounding’ phenomenon.
“All brands that evoke Italianness in the name or in the graphic but are Italian, SHOULD state that the product is not made in Italy. The origin of the product must not indicate the country in which the food has undergone the last substantial transformation, but its effective ORIGIN.”
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